Scott Rolen went 2-for-4 as he hit his 3rd homer in the last week. Now has 11 homers and 30 RBIs. I’d say he’s in this afternoon’s Buy/Sell, but he’s not. He almost was then I thought about what I would write about him. I didn’t want to write about how I wasn’t sure what to write about him. I figured that was pointless. Wait… Oh. Soooo, Rolen will hit 25 homers this year with a decent average and RBIs or he’ll get hurt and play only 100 games. I’m thinking the latter happens, but I’d own him if I needed power for a chance at the former. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Johnny Cueto – 6 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 9 Ks. Could say his run of 6 straight solid starts has to do with his opponents, but he’s in the NL Central who’s he gonna face? 1985 Cards? Ooh, Tommy Herr, I’m scared.

Brandon Phillips – I don’t own him anywhere but I get comments about trading him away or some shizz. So I looked at his stats today. He has 6 homers and 7 steals. I’ll agree when you’re going along that’s fairly yawnstipating, but that’s also a 20/20 pace, exactly where he should be. Phillips is who he is. Like with boxers, you gotta your boys breath.

Nelson Cruz – Another day, another hamstring injury. Wouldn’t be surprised to see him back on the DL within a few days. The alternative is he plays through the hamstring injury for a few days then hurts himself worse. If I could bottle a way to strengthen hamstrings, I’d misplace it then find it three years later wondering what it is. Then I’d open it, smell it and think to myself, “Is this Drakkar?”

Curtis Granderson – To return today. Isn’t it weird how it’s today? Tomorrow makes sense. It’s to morrow. You’re going to morrow. Going to day is redundant. Should be just day. Hmm, I sound like I’m on narcotics.

Joey Votto – Out for a second day with a stiff neck. Maybe he has a Viagra lodged in his throat. Thank you, Shecky Greene!

John Ely – 7 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks. Loving Ely so far, even if I benched him in certain leagues yesterday. Hey, can’t blame him that I need a cup check. WHY DO YOU LOVE HIM SO MUCH? Thanks for asking, Mr. Caps. He has 32 Ks against 6 walks and a 1.00 WHIP through 39 innings. He is doing a better impersonation of Slowey than Slowey himself.

Ted Lilly – 7 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks. Now has a 3.63 ERA on the year or exactly the same ERA you would think Ted Lilly would have for the last ten years if you didn’t actually look it up.

Geovany Soto – Has one hit since May 16th. One way to have people stop saying how bad your sophomore slump is by making your junior slump even worse.

Daisuke Matsuzaka – 4 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 10 baserunners (8 Walks), 1 K. You know it’s bad when you drop a guy before the game is even over and it doesn’t even feel liberating when you lose him. I don’t know how I got bamboozled into starting Dice-BB in a league. Such a bad judgment call. I blame Alfredo Simon for going on the DL and giving me room on my roster.

P.J. Walters – 5 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks. Guy sounds like he’s on an 80’s detective show where he solves all the cases in his pajamas. P.J. Walters: The Groggy Eye. So, this start was vs. the Padres in Petco. He’ll probably stick for now in the rotation with the lose of Lohse. I’d look at him in NL-Only leagues, but no mixed leagues yet.

Josh Willingham – Now has 3 homers in the last week while he bats near .400. Something’s cooking and it smells like ham.

Justin Maxwell – 0-for-3 as he bats .138 for the year. He leadoff yesterday. Nyjer Morgan’s sucking up a boba straw’s worth of crap this year. He bats leadoff all the time. Know how many times Desmond’s hit leadoff? Not once. Thanks, Nats, for my ulcer.

Jose Reyes – 3-for-4 as he raised his average 39 points in the last 7 games. In the beginning of the month, I said he’d be hitting .255 by the end of the month with 17 steals. He needs to hit around .300 in his last three games with a handful of steals. Even if it doesn’t happen what he’s done over the last week shows not only what he can do but what any struggling star can do. Sure, Holliday looks lost. But at some point he will turn it on and you’ll be glad you have him. Nobody talks about the fantasy baseball championship they won on May 31st, still plenty of time left. Over 4 months to be inexact. Okay, school’s out, Alice Cooper.

Carlos Beltran – Mets say Beltran is unlikely to return before mid-July. A report out of New York said a kid who was born the day Beltran went on the DL said his first words yesterday, “Beltran sucks.”

Seth Smith – Has now hit 3 homers in the last two days. He should be in today’s Buy/Sell but he won’t be because I’m telling you to pick him up right now.

Jason Hammel – 5 1/3 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 8 Ks. Been a complete and utter mess this year, but he had a 3.13 ERA last year in Away games and his next start is in San Francisco.

Gavin Floyd – 7 IP, 3 ER, 5 baserunners, 5 Ks. Now has two solid starts in a row. His peripherals were saying he should be better and it looks like he’s been listening.

Jeff Niemann – 8 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks. Now has a 2.37 ERA and a 1.05 WHIP. I’m going to sound like an obstinate broken record here. But I don’t buy into Neimann at all. At all. At–

B.J. Upton – Sat out his second straight day for a mental rest. As frequent commenter, Steve, said, “Well, owning him is driving me mental so I guess it’s fair enough.”

Jason Kubel – 3-for-4, 5 RBIs and 2 homers as someone popped the Kubel. Now has 5 doubles and 5 homers on the year as he bats .233. I didn’t think he’d only hit 3 homers and .200 the whole year, so he had to hit at some point. This could be the point. He’s really no different than Cody Ross or Luke Scott or a dozen other guys who could hit 25 homers this year. Just depends whose outfield basket you want your eggs.

Javier Vazquez – 5 2/3 IP, 5 ER, 11 baserunners, 2 Ks. He left with a bruised finger. His fantasy owners have a middle finger he can borrow.

I’m starting Carlos Monasterios in Coors today. Pray for me! I may need a few Coors afterwards but in a 20 team H2H points league there ain’t a lot of streamers out there! Sometimes even a warm body will get you a few points, see Vasquez, Javy!

You don’t have to buy Niemann and I agree he is pitching a bit over his head and his “stuff” isn’t otherworldly but he is getting more ground balls and less line drives with most of his other peripherals about the same and he happens to have a pretty good defense behind him…his FIP, BABIP, and LOB% are partially a product of his above-average defense…and watching him pitch…he’s not getting knocked around or getting hit hard only to see batters get robbed, he is pitching efficiently…will he regress more toward his mean…sure but I think his success has been a product of some talent and some surroundings…cust kayin’

Law of averages says Harens ERA should come down. Are we looking at a guy going to have over a 4-4.5 ERA this year or is he gonna bring it down INTO the 3’s somewhere? With the second half looming could this shizz get worse? 10 HR’s in his past 3 starts, is that possible? And i’m playing in a 12 team H2H league, not some overall ROTO league where we’re just looking at what he accumulates, K/BB are great but when he’s wrecking everything else its destroying my entire week.

I have more faith in Carlos Lee turning it around and the nice little piece of marmol as a bonus. I’d almost take Marmol straight up for Haren right now, but i know he goes 10-0 his next 10 starts if i do that. HELP ME.

It’s good to finally see Reyes heating up. I just traded Bartlett for B. Gardner in my H2H league. Now I can move Stewart to MI & pick up Encarnacion or Chipper to play CI, or I can grab someone like Aviles for MI & keep Stewart at CI. Which guy would you pick up?

thank you for that Beltran comment, as someone who’s watched him rot in my DL slot all season (while I’ve had to waste usable roster spots on Montero and Brian Roberts) that was a good cathartic laugh I just had.

Grey,
Long time reader, first time writer. Today, you commented on 24 players. I own 8 of them on a team nostalgically called the “Montreal Expos.” That’s a high percentage, especially considering you don’t know me (at least, not very well). So, I’d like to request a name change for your article. I’d like it to be called “The Montreal Expos-t.” Are you likely to change the post’s title? Nope. Am I likely to refer to your post with the new name I’ve christened when I drone on at my wife about fantasy baseball at dinner? Yup.

a quick wikipedia scan tells me that seth smith was the college backup QB to Eli Manning, while Todd Helton was the backup QB to Peyton Manning…hmmm… but does any of this mean he is worth dropping sunglass hart for? thx Grey!

@Grey – I know this is a “Blah” question, but would it be a good time for me to drop Soto for Carlos Santana? From what I’ve been reading, he should be coming up at some point next week. Soto has given me 1 R and a .000 BA the past week and a half, so I figure it can’t hurt me. But it really depends on Carlos Santana coming up next week…

My pitching staff isn’t great either, I have Lester, Johan, Hughes, Slowey, Cecil, Pettite, and Webb on the DL. Do I go ahead and try and shore up my outfield and create a weakness with my pitching staff, or do I stand pat? He also offered Haren and Lind for my Lester and Damon. Which trade do you like more.

Grey
Dont’ forget about Iannetta’s dominating return yesterday. Glad to see the Rocks benched a guy slamming it at hope for a dude to come back and put up a .150 average…..Rockies need to just give it up.

I need to open a spot for Mr.Smith. (standard roto 5×5, 12 team)
Do I hold onto Matusz for another month? or go with hot hands like Bonderman?

Drop boesch or Scott for Smith? Pitchers I could drop, Matusz, Meek and Heilman.
Sorry for the mess I’m kinda still sleeping and everything is still jumbled, lol. I think there is two questions in there.
Thank for your help.

Nolasco is becoming my new Slowey. I can’t wait to find an excuse to drop him. I had to sit him last night to protect my ERA/Whip leads. I swear when he doesn’t have his best stuff he just groves the ball to keep his walks down. I’ll take a slightly higher WHIP if it means my ERA won’t get beat like a low hanging pinata at a fat kid’s birthday party. I’m so sick of hearing about 22:1 K:BB ratio from spring training or his 16K outing last year. F this guy.

Can we begin to trust Brian Bannister in a 16-team league? He’s won three straight, including last night in BOS. He still doesn’t strike out that many guys, but it looks like he’s cut down the walks, (10:2 K:BB in the last three wins), which has contributed to his success.

@ScottyM: Yea, owning Nolasco has been frustrating, but keep in mind last night was a rain-shortened night for him. Despite pitching only 4 innings, they smartly kept him out after a long delay. He got the bad luck loss. He’ll improve.

I understand Seth Smith sits against lefties, my problem is that when i see he’s out of the lineup, I bench him, then miss out on the pinch hit homer (like last night). tough for me to own a part timer still. i don’t know…

So Grey, are you really not liking Tremé so far? It’s definitely no Wire, but between the music (esp. the opening song) in the show and how it exposes how neglected New Orleans really was after the storm, I find it pretty fascinating. The show moves at a snails pace, but that kind of seems like that’s the point.

Oh, and I didn’t get a chance to mention it the other day, but your Clay Davis reference had me rolling. Have a great Memorial Day weekend.

Last week you advised dropping Willingham for Quentin, but now it looks like I should consider the inverse move. Though, with my luck Quentin would then go on a tear and Willingham would hit .200 for 3 weeks.

I have to make room for Granderson. I’m thinking of dropping Coghlan or Rajai Davis. The latter seems to be a part time player these days and I’ll be getting some steals from Grandy. Coghlan is really nothing beyond a hole plugger though, and Quentin is lost. OPS league — would you reacquire Willingham or just make room for Grandy? Who would your drops be?

I was at last night’s game, and despite his line, Bannister was throwing crap. He got a few bogus calls and a hell of a lot of help from the Royals’ defense… which is weird, y’know? ‘Cause they’re the Royals, and they’re not normally into the whole playing-baseball-adequately thing. Alls I’m saying is, you can probably do better.

@Grey – My girlfriend (one of your 3 female readers) picked up Wakefield in our H2H league just because we’re going to tonight’s game. I doubt that’s funny to anyone else, but there you have it.

Also, as a cautionary note to anyone thinking of inviting a significant other to play in their league… don’t. I talked mine into it, and she’s been in 1st place since week 2. I have won EVERY SINGLE WEEK this year and I still can’t catch her. I even beat her head-to-head, and I’m still in 2nd by half a game. Boo-urns.

after watching rolen for years with the cardinals, i always said that he had WTP (warning track power). Many of his HRs this year would have been flyouts in a real ballpark, but he is a good guy and i’m glad he is doing well (unfortunately not for any of my fantasy teams).

Why do you gotta bring up the ’85 cards? Making me relive a painful childhood memory (screw you DD!!). That lineup may not have been a murderers row of homerun hitters, but they would run all over the competition (herr = 31 steals, ozzie = 31 steals, van slyke = 34 steals, mcgee = 56 steals, vince coleman = 110 steals, even terry pendleton stole 17). That was one of the most fun teams to watch…

@Russ, I think that was more of an indictment on Oswalt than a huge support for Masterson. He is the inverse of Livan Hernandez when it comes to luck right now. Oh yeah, and he desperately needs an out pitch for lefties.

@DonnieBB & Commish Cauda, I’m not really ready to jump off a cliff with Nolasco, but I am frustrated. I had him last year too and got the whole year’s worth of stats from him, both good & bad(REALLY BAD). I dropped him for his last start and minors stint. Speaking of minors, does he have any options? Maybe they can send him down for another tune-up like last year. I was really just wondering about Ely?

@Bannister – Don’t pick up this doode. He is going to lay flaming poo on your door step in the middle of the night & he won’t even leave you any K’s to help with the cleanup.

@pat: In the words of Grey, I’d want Tex there. But Pavano isn’t really brining much to the table there. You’re basically talking about a Votto-Tex swap, which I doubt Tex’s owner will go for at this point, but you never know.

@pat: votto/bay seems like alot. Votto is close to tex, closer than people think, wont get the RBI total or the runs, but HR’s will be close and he runs and will hit for about the same if not better average. Votto and a SP like ? would work….

@Grey: Werth for Hamels and BJ Upton? Which side do you like and is it even close? Upton has given me too many 0/4s but my league doesn’t count K’s and he still steal bases whenever he somehow manages to get on first.